The Rev. Alanna Sullivan, Associate Minister and Director of Administration, the Memorial Church. File photo by Jeffrey Blackwell/Memorial Church Communications
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By the Rev. Alanna Sullivan
Associate Minister and Director of Administration
Memorial Church of Harvard University
(The following is a transcript of the service audio)
Will you pray with me?
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts and minds, be acceptable in your sight, oh God, our rock and redeemer. Amen.
So friends, our second lesson for today finds us at the powerful and perplexing intersection of Jesus' divinity and His humanity. Up to this point, the author of John has been telling us about Jesus' life, ministry, and miracles. And the raising of Lazarus is the last of seven sign stories, in which Jesus performs miracles.
The word miracle literally means sign. A sign that points to the presence of God. So, a miracle is not necessarily something supernatural, although it is in the case of Lazarus. Anything. Anything that points to God can be called a miracle; a sign.
Our story today also concludes John's account of Jesus's public ministry. The rest of this gospel is devoted to Jesus' farewell discourses and the passion story. In a very real way, the story of Lazarus is intended to be a gateway to the next phase of the narrative. And thus far, in John's telling of the gospel, Jesus has been more detached, unfazed by those around him.
At the beginning of the passage when he initially hears the news from Mary and Martha about their brother Lazarus being ill, Jesus delays his visit by a few days. Now we're not told why. Maybe it's because he knows what's to come. Maybe he doesn't realize at first just how sick Lazarus really is. Maybe he also shares the fear of the disciples, about the possibility of being stoned by the crowds. Yet when Jesus arrives to Bethany, the teetering tension between life and death magnifies and Jesus comes to demonstrate the vulnerability that comes from loving his friends.
Words in this text indicate that Lazarus is a genuine friend of Jesus. Jesus' affection for Lazarus is described as philia, the Greek word for fondness and friendship. Philia is used instead of what we might assume be in its place, and that word is agape. The selfless, self-sacrificing kind of love that John so often writes about throughout the rest of the gospel.
One can imagine the weeping and lament filling the air, along with a pungent smell, as loved ones gather to mourn Lazarus's death. Four days have passed since he was pronounced dead. In Judaism at that time, the fourth day marked the completion of a soul's journey from life to death. Lazarus's soul was believed to no longer be lingering near his body. In other words, he is really, really dead.
And overcome by grief, Mary and Martha each shared their disappointment that Jesus hasn't arrived until then. Both claim, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." Amid mourning and pain, how easy it is to say things that we don't mean.
And yet in this case, Mary and Martha considered Jesus to be a friend. They trusted him as a teacher, a healer, a miracle worker. And even more so, they believe him to be the Messiah. Perhaps God would've listened to Jesus' request, if he had only arrived sooner. So it's not at all surprising that they feel some amount of disappointment, even betrayal, alongside their pain and lament.
And then, Jesus stands at the grave of his friend and weeps. That's all that the gospel says, "Jesus wept." "Jesus wept," is the shortest verse in this passage. It's the shortest verse in this gospel. In fact, it is even the shortest verse in all of the Bible. And yet those two words, "Jesus wept," are big enough to contain Jesus' divinity and humanity. Yes, Jesus knows, and we know, that resurrection is just around the corner because there's no Easter without traveling through Holy Week. Yet this promise of joy and hope for life after death doesn't negate the essential place of grief and the need for lament in our lives.
When Jesus cries, he reassures Mary and Martha that their tears are holy. God is weeping right along side them. As the psalmist says, "God collects our tears in a bottle and records each one." Jesus's tears also acknowledge just how complex life can be. Life is not sampling, an counting of gains and losses, sorrows and joys. The joy that comes with the raising of Lazarus doesn't cancel out the pain that Mary and Martha are feeling right now. That haunting memory of saying goodbye, or that gaping absence left when he died, or the ultimate reality itself, death that awaits us all.
Whatever joy lies in the future is shaped by the sorrows and fears and losses of today. And no matter how much we want it to be, so there's no returning to the way things were. And what's amazing is that God embraces the whole spectrum of our humanity, along with recognizing that seed of divinity planted deep within each of us.
True faith understands this. Martha expresses resentment at Jesus' delay and yet with her very next breath, she voices her trust in his power. And Martha blames Jesus for Lazarus's death, but she does so on her knees, in a posture of hopefulness. And Jesus' own face is wet with his tears, as he prays to God, and resurrects his friend.
Now, at first glance or at the surface, this may seem confusing. However, if we're honest, each of us carries multitudes of contradictions within ourselves. We're only human. And Jesus doesn't try to defend or explain all that's happening. He has no words, for perhaps words are insufficient and we should pay special attention to when the one who is called the word refuses to speak. Silence doesn't attempt to explain away the trauma or the pain. Silence accepts and acknowledges it because suffering is irreducible.
Sometimes we just need to sit and be present. And sometimes there is nothing to be said in the face of loss. Silence, at its best, can be both eloquent and sufficient. And thankfully, our God is not either or. God is both. God can hold and take whatever is just too much for us. And when Jesus weeps, he's not only weeping over the death of his friend. He's also crying in anticipation of his own death.
In John's account, the raising of Lazarus is the event that just comes right before Jesus' own arrest and crucifixion. It's the event that sets it all off. Because when the word spreads about the miracle in Bethany, that's when the authorities decide that enough is enough. Jesus has to be stopped.
So Jesus knows that the end is near. He knows that his time with friends is almost over. And in crying he asserts that it's okay to yearn for life. It's okay to clinging to this beautiful world. It's okay to feel a sense of wrongness and injustice in the face of death. It's okay to cherish the gift of life. And then this does lead Jesus to say a few words. This interesting assertion that, "I am the resurrection and the life."
Martha initially misunderstands Jesus by assuming that when he speaks of eternal life, he's merely referring to the resurrection that'll take place at the end of time. Instead, as Jesus makes clear, eternal life is something that can be experienced in the present. He responds with, "I am the resurrection and the life." Sometimes we remain so focused on Jesus's good news for the future, "I am the resurrection," we forget his presence and blessing in the here and now. And, "I am the life." Jesus calls us to see God's presence and to engage the holy, lay claim to the promise of eternal life, not just as some future or distant reality, but something to claim now.
This is also corrective to the notion that the faithful will be rewarded in the future, after death, an idea that has dangerously been used to placate those who have been oppressed, neglected, and marginalized.
Preacher Fred Craddock put it this way. "Jesus said, 'I am the resurrection and the life,' not only as a promise, but a correction to Martha's faith. She believed in a resurrection at the last day, in eternal life totally in the future. His offer needs to be repeated to all those whose presence is barren and all who survive on a distant hope."
We tend to focus on the resurrection as a distant promise, our salvation yet to come, our eternal life with God and Jesus and heaven far, far away. But what might it mean that Jesus' resurrection and life is here and now?
In the chapter that follows our passage for today, Jesus is anointed at the home of Mary and Martha, and we are told that Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Lazarus's new life is not separate, or set apart from his world. Instead, Lazarus is found leaning at the breast of Jesus, reclining at the table with Jesus, sharing food and fellowship with Jesus.
New life in Jesus is this intimacy, this dwelling, this closeness, this lying on the chest of Christ. And the boundary between the earthly and the ethereal begins to dissolve. Because as Jesus tells us again and again, the distance between this world and the next is a lot shorter than we think. And thank goodness for that.